APPENDIX.

No. I.

Text,
page 20. The Brain the Organ of the Mind.

Dr Gall
supports the proposition that the brain is the organ of the mind, by a number
of facts in addition to those mentioned in the text. A lady of distinguished
talent fell and wounded the back of her head ; from this time she was subject
to periodical fits of madness, and gradually lost her intellectual brilliancy.-A
man whom Dr Gall saw at Pforzheim, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, had his frontal
bone fractured at the age of six years, and in consequence became liable to
periodical fits of fury.-In another, residing at Weil, near Stuttgard, a portion
of the skull was depressed by a blow from a stone. Before this accident, he
bore the reputation of a peaceful citizen, but after recovery his friends
were surprised to find his character entirely changed ;-though formerly so
mild and good-natured, he was now a troublesome brawler. Dr Gall preserved
his skull, which is thick and very dense, thus shewing how much the brain
had been affected,1-Father Mabillon had a very limited capacity
in early youth, insomuch that, at the age of eighteen, he could neither read
nor write, and hardly even speak. In consequence of a fall, it became necessary
to trepan his skull : during his convalescence a copy of Euclid fell into
his hands, and he made rapid progress in the study of mathematics.2-Dr
Gall mentions also the case of a lad who, up to his thirteenth year, was incorrigibly
dull, having fallen from a staircase and wounded his head, he afterwards,
when cured, pursued his studies with distinguished success.-Another young
man, when at the age of fourteen or fifteen, was equally unpromising, but
fell from a stair in Copen-

1Gall, ii. 174. 2Id. p. 176.

424 APPENDIX.

hagen, and
subsequently manifested great vigour of the intellectual faculties. Nor was
this the full extent of the change. Before the accident, his moral character
was unexceptionable ; but latterly it became so bad as to deprive him of an
important situation, and ultimately to consign him to prison.-Gretry tells
of himself in his Memoirs, that he was indebted for his musical genius to
a violent blow inflicted on his head by a falling beam of wood.-Haller speaks
of an idiot who, having been seriously wounded on the head, manifested intelligence
while the injury was unhealed, but relapsed into imbecility as soon as the
cure was complete.1-Dr Caldwell mentions the case of a mechanic,
near Lexington, Kentucky, whose intellectual powers were greatly augmented
by " an inflammatory action of the brain resulting from a mechanical injury."
A similar change, he adds, " took place on one of the sons of the late Dr
Priestley. A fracture of the skull, produced by a fall from a two-story window,
improved not a little the character of his intellect. For a knowledge of this
fact I am indebted to the Doctor himself."2

-A young
man who had received a considerable wound near the temporal bone was trepanned
by Acrel. When cured, he felt an irresistible propensity to steal, although
formerly no such disposition had existed : Acrel 'procured his liberation
from prison by attributing this troublesome inclination to the effects of
the wound.3

-There is
in Dr Gall's collection a cast of the head of a relative of his own, whose
brain was injured by the fall of a tile : before the accident this person
was good-natured, pacific, and regular in his habits, but afterwards became
eccentric, quarrelsome, and apt to fly into a passion at the slightest contradiction.4 Mr Hood of Kilmarnock has published similar cases. A man was waylaid and struck
severely on the head with a pair of tongs, which penetrated to a considerable
depth into his brain at the situation of the left organ of Cautiousness ;
subsequently to this he manifested an unusual degree of timidity. Another
individual had his skull fractured by falling from a stage-coach, the injury
extending over the organs of Destructiveness and Combativeness ; and his temper
in consequence became more irritable than before.5 Little is yet
known concerning the manner in which the injuries produced these effects.
See Phrenological Journal, vol. xii. p. 285.